KERING of Paris, France just won a proceeding under the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) policy to get the domain name PPR.Wang Suspended
Mr. Sebastian Matthew White Hughes, was the Examiner who found that KERING owned a trademark on the term “PPR”
The problem I have with this decision is that the Examiner didn’t take the time to mention where the trademark was granted, what is was granted for or when the trademark was granted and obviously PPR is a very generic term.
In The US alone there are 9 live trademarks for the term “PPR” 5 are owned by the Complainant here but 4 are not.
Moreover since its a French company and an Chinese registrant, I wonder if the person in China who registered the domain was even aware of the trademark.
So what conduct did the registrant engage in to cause the suspension, well they did not park the domain.
They just “made no use to date of the registered domain name.”
“Respondent claims Respondent registered the domain name for the purpose of selling PPR pipes in China.
Respondent supports this assertion by exhibiting examples of Internet search results for “PPR” using the Baidu search engine.
Yet Respondent has not provided any evidence to show that it is engaged in, or intends to engage in, the business of selling PPR pipes in China.”
A search of the PPR in Google returns a couple of results for Kering but also returns just as many results for Fantasy Football Leagues.
It may have been the proper result but a sloppy opinion especially considering the generic nature of the three letters, the other uses for the term and that there are other trademarks for the term and that this case was filed as a URS not a UDRP.
PPR isn’t IBM.